Walking in the way of the cross

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Book of Common Prayer


That was the prayer for Good Friday in my devotional reading today.  What got my attention was the phrase, "Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross . . . "  Am I walking in the way of the cross?  What does it mean to walk in the way of the cross? 


I've been chewing on this for awhile now and all I can come up with is bullet points.  Walking in the way of the cross means

• pain
• loving self-sacrifice
• forsakenness
• forgiveness
• surrender
• and eventually, resurrection.

What would you add?

Family ties

This past weekend, my siblings and I celebrated our parents' 50th wedding anniversary by meeting at a lake house with just our spouses--something we had never done before.  Seriously:  we have not all been together--just us, without kids and extended family--until we started leaving home.  Let me just say, it was a great idea.

For one thing, look at this amazing deck overlooking the Texas hill country.  For another thing, look how relaxed everyone is!  We sat out on this deck for hours, talking and laughing.  I hadn't seen my brother act out a story since he was a little boy.  Thirty-plus years later, he's still hilarious.  

My mom and dad brought their wedding album and old family photos and photos from our growing-up years and we sat at the table and talked about our memories-- at least some of them actually happened, I think!  People have been asking me how the weekend turned out and I guess I'd have to say that the most telling moment was at the end, when we all stood around and agreed that we would like to do it again and more often.

"The women"

On Sunday, our Bible study class studied the biblical narrative of the woman caught in adultery in John 8.  The story ends with Jesus looking at the woman, both of them standing, eye to eye, and telling her, "Go and sin no more."  It's a familiar phrase but something about it has always troubled me.  People don't change just because someone tells them to.  "Just do it" (or "Just don't do it") doesn't actually work.  The roots of our brokenness go deep and change is usually hard and sometimes elusive.  Surely Jesus knew that.

In Faithwalking, we try to model the process of transformation on the method that Jesus actually used and that seems to have continued into the early church:  bring people together who are all on the journey of change, put them in small groups for teaching and even smaller groups for deep learning.  Offer what is now called "coaching" but used to be called "discipling," as a more experienced (but not perfect) fellow-traveler comes alongside a small group of others and offers what Jesus offered--good questions, a few profound answers, and a safe place to explore repentance and a different way of life.

As I wondered about what happened to the woman in our story and wondered whether that very brief experience with Jesus was enough to set her free from whatever had brought her to that place of sin and exposure, I remembered something.  Twice in the gospels, the male gospel writers give brief attention to "the women" who were also following Jesus.

¹ After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, ² and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; ³ Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.  Luke 8:1-3

⁴⁰ Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph,^[d] and Salome.⁴¹ In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there. Mark 15:40-41

Like the Twelve, the female disciples were also traveling together in a small group of unlikely friends.  Don't you wonder how a woman who had been delivered from 7 demons ended up in this relationship with the wife of the manager of Herod's household?  


In my imagination, one or two very brave and very devoted women must have begun following Jesus at a small distance, offering to help in the unique ways that a woman could and then folded into their group the women whose lives were changed by this itinerant rabbi.  Just a few at first, probably, and then one by one, women came to find out more and ended up staying, until there were "many others."  


I can imagine them staying up late at night talking about Jesus' latest teachings and what they meant and what it would mean to really live them out in their own ordinary womanly lives.  I can imagine them finding women in the crowds who had come to listen to Jesus and engaging them in conversation.  And, on Sunday, I could definitely imagine them encircling this shamed woman after the men had left and offering hugs and grace and the larger message of the gospel and maybe a cup of coffee.  


I can see them inviting her to go with them and maybe she did.  Maybe they embraced her and sent her back to her village with a new understanding of what had just happened to her.  Maybe they told her how they had learned to "sin no more," and encouraged her to imagine that could be possible for her.  Maybe they lifted her shame off of her so that she could go in peace. 


I'm aware that this is just my imagination and that we don't know what happened.  The story of the women in most of Scripture and church history remains unknown and untold.  About this particular cluster of women, though, we know that they were there during Jesus' ministry and they were there at the cross and they were still there at Pentecost (Acts 1:14).  We know that they embraced both radical roles (following a rabbi and supporting him from their own means)  and traditional ones (caring for his needs).  We know that they were braver and more faithful at the end than the male disciples were and we know that one of them was the first to know about the resurrection.  We know that they received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost and prophesied.  It's really not hard to imagine the rest.

Crushin' on Jesus

There is a lot of language in evangelical spirituality about being "in love" with Jesus.  I just finished a good book about cultivating a more radical love for God based on humility and obedience but toward the end, it veered off into this romantic view of spiritual devotion.

The idea is that because God is more important to us than any human relationship, we should feel the same kind of emotional attachment to Him that we feel in our intense relationships.  Since the most intense emotional connection we feel is the rush of feelings associated with being "in love," then it supposedly follows that if we are really seeking to "love God with our whole heart, mind, and soul," as Jesus commanded, then we will have those same kinds of feelings, at the same intensity, that we have in the early stages of infatuation.

Not only have most of us read this idea in books and listened to it in overwrought, manipulative sermons (I remember quite a few from youth camp), we even sing the words, "Jesus, I am so in love with you," in one popular worship chorus.  This isn't a new idea, either.  The beloved Victorian-era hymn "In the Garden" captures these overtones as well and there's a reason why it is rarely cited by men as their favorite hymn but often by women.

I don't want to say that we shouldn't explore the themes of Jesus as Bridegroom or Jesus as Lover, since these are clearly biblical metaphors.  But practically speaking, I think that this way of thinking sets up unrealistic expectations for Christians who are sincerely trying to follow Jesus but don't feel what they think they are supposed to feel.  That leads to unnecessary guilt, for one thing, and disappointment in their own spiritual lives.  It also leads to a unique style of musical worship which strives to manufacture a kind of low-level ecstasy mimicking infatuation.  These effects, among others, are having an impact in the modern evangelical church.

It doesn't work, unfortunately, because the "in love" feelings are actually the result of a biochemical cocktail made up of neurotransmitters like dopamine and norepinephrine and serotonin and create a slightly manic, highly anxious form of minor mental illness.  Couples struggle when they learn that this state of infatuation can't be maintained in a marriage, especially when they have come to define it as "love."  And Christians feel guilty and inadequate when they can't maintain it in their spiritual lives, and they wonder what's wrong with them and whether God will judge them for being "lukewarm."

I'd rather see Christians (and couples, too, for that matter) strive for the kind of love that people exhibit in happy, longterm committed relationships.  The kind of warm affection that comes from positive regard, fondness, forgiveness and grace and allows us build a solid relationship over time . . . the kind of love that sometimes feels overpowering and intense but mostly feels like being "home" . . . the sacrificial love that seeks the good of the other person even when it costs something . . . that's the kind of love for God that I wish we would aspire to.

Facebook

I love Facebook, I really do.  It appeals to the extroverted part of me, which needs to connect, while accommodating the introverted part of me, which needs to keep just a little distance.  Thanks to Facebook, I've made contact with people I care about but had lost touch with, I've reminisced with people who used to be very important in my life and I get to hear some of the details of the lives of people I am close to but don't interact with regularly.  What's not to like?

My friend--who also likes Facebook--was saying the other day that it reminds him of the social interactions in the small Louisiana town he grew up in.  You know how it works in small towns, right?  You go to the grocery store and see ten people you know.  Each one of them tells you what they've been up to and who they saw while they were up to it.  If they went to Dairy Queen for lunch, they tell you about that and then they tell you about whether they got the ice cream sandwich or the Dilly bar for dessert and then they tell you who else was there and what they had for dessert.  See, just like Facebook!

Seriously, I know that Facebook has its problems.  Some of them are the new problems of the digital age:  hacking and emotional isolation and social alienation and the lack of privacy.  Some of them, though, are the same old problems that people in small towns or in close-knit urban neighborhoods have always known:  how difficult it is to be confronted with the lives of other people who seem to be happier or healthier or otherwise better off than you are, the tendency to keep things superficial,  to assume we know more about people than we do and then to judge and of course, the lack of privacy.

I'm sure there are academics somewhere studying all of this but I'm really intrigued by the social effects of Facebook and how the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Catching up

C was watching an old episode of Seinfeld tonight, in which George and Jerry were discussing the option of going to therapy "once a week for $80 a session."  Um . . . exactly 20 years later, I'm doing therapy for--yep, you guessed it--$80 a session (unless I adjust the fee based on income and then it's less.)  I'm not sure how to feel about that.   Last year, I discovered that my clients were paying their tattoo artist more than they were paying me, but then I realized that I get more than one chance at success, whereas the tattoo artist doesn't, so maybe I'm glad not to have the pressure.

On another note, to catch you up on things around our house . . . Boo is home for spring break and we're planning to rest some, eat some, shop some, and clean some.  Sounds like a great week!  (I still have to go to work, but always have a lighter schedule when school is out.)

Mowgli is in NC hanging out with friends, climbing and hiking and seeing old classmates.  We hope to have his diploma framed for him by the time he gets home.  He will also hear back this month from the four grad schools he applied to so there's a little extra suspense there.  He's been working every chance he gets so we're glad he's getting a little fun time away.

I ended up choosing two daily disciplines for Lent:  something to give up (snacking) and something to take on (reading.)  In both cases, I tend to graze rather than stopping to think about what I'm doing and nourishing myself wisely.  So far, it's been very fruitful.

I'm still working toward the 5K, although I've modified my expectations.  (If you don't know me on Facebook, I was pretty discouraged when I discovered that my months of running on a treadmill at the gym did not yield the same results when I started running on the road.)  I did go get fitted for running shoes (as several of you suggested) and it was completely awful and humiliating but I now have very supportive running shoes, so we'll see if that helps.

I left this morning at 6:45 a.m. to get to Houston in time for a meeting and got home at 6:00 p.m.  I've either driven or flown somewhere out of town every week for ten straight weeks and that may be getting a little old.  On the flip side, though, I'm getting wonderful opportunities to do exciting work with the most amazing people so it is ALL good.  All of it.  I'm blessed by my family and my church and my work when I'm at home and I'm blessed by my friends and my colleagues and my work when I'm gone.  I'm doubly, triply, quadruply blessed.  And kind of tired of my car.

C has been sick but he's recovering now.  Baylor beat Kansas tonight so he is walking on air and March Madness is in the air so he will be in heaven for a few weeks.  He's also really enjoying his preaching series and the new BLESS team at church and celebrating his 5th anniversary here and so life is good for him too.

So . . . how are things with you?

Thoughts about recent events

I know better than to get upset by the rantings of a bully and so that's not what upset me.  What hurt--and I use that word purposefully--was watching so many decent people defend him and his vileness, whether out of agreement or self-interest, I don't know.  Knowing that this kind of thinking is acceptable for at least 15 million people in this country makes me feel vulnerable and afraid.  Knowing that at least 8 companies were willing to say differently makes me feel a little better.

Let me be clear:  this is not about disagreement between people about legitimate issues.  What is at stake here is addressing disagreement or differences with women by seeking to humiliate or degrade them sexually.  It was wrong when Ed Shultz did it last year by calling Laura Ingraham a slut.  It was wrong last week when another "entertainer" did it on the radio and then added so much more vile commentary. It is wrong when it happens to Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin and it is wrong when it happens to Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama.  It is wrong when it happens in families as domestic violence. It is wrong when soldiers and militias do it as they systematically rape women and girls in Africa and other war zones.  It's wrong when it shows up in its mildest form and it's wrong when it shows up in its most tragic.  What disturbs and scares me is that we apparently don't have agreement on that.